Associated Press
Published on Friday, March 22, 2024 at 6:07 PM EDT
Last updated on Friday, March 22, 2024 9:13 PM EDT
MOSCOW (AP) – Assailants burst into a large concert hall in Moscow and opened fire on the crowd on Friday, killing more than 60 people and wounding more than 100, a number President Vladimir Putin said solidified his presidential claim. Days later, they carried out a brazen attack by setting the venue on fire. Seize power in a highly organized electoral landslide.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on relevant social media channels. A U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press that the U.S. intelligence community learned that the group’s affiliate in Afghanistan was planning an attack on Moscow and shared that information with Russian officials.
It was not immediately clear what happened to the attackers after the attack, but state investigators are investigating it as a terrorist incident.
The attack, which caused the roof to collapse and a concert hall to burst into flames, was Russia’s deadliest in years and came as the country’s war in Ukraine entered its third year. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called the attack a “huge tragedy.”
The Kremlin said Putin was alerted minutes after the attackers burst into the Crocus Town Hall, a large music venue that can seat 6,200 people in Moscow’s western edge.
The attack occurred as a crowd gathered for a performance by Russian rock band Picnic. The Commission of Inquiry, the state’s top criminal investigation body, reported early Saturday that more than 60 people had been killed. Health authorities released a list of 145 injured, of whom 115 were hospitalized, including five children.
Some Russian reports have suggested that more victims may have been trapped in a fire that broke out after the attackers threw explosives.
Video showed huge plumes of smoke billowing into the night sky and buildings on fire. The flashing blue lights of dozens of fire engines, ambulances and other emergency vehicles illuminated the streets, and fire helicopters buzzed overhead, dropping water to extinguish the blaze.
Prosecutors said several men wearing combat fatigues entered the concert hall and opened fire on concertgoers.
Dave Primoff, who was in the hall during the attack, described the panic and confusion when the attack began.
“There was a volley of shots,” Primov told The Associated Press. “We all tried to get up and move toward the aisle. People panicked and started running, crashing into each other. Some fell and others trampled.”
Videos posted on Russian media and messaging app channels showed men with assault rifles shooting at screaming people at close range. One video showed a man in the auditorium saying the attackers had set the fire, as gunshots rang out incessantly.
Russian media said the concert hall’s security guards were not armed and some may have been killed when the attack began. Some Russian media outlets suggested that the attackers fled before special forces and riot police arrived. According to reports, police patrols are searching for several vehicles that the attackers may have used to escape.
In a statement published by its Amaq news agency, the Islamic State group said it had attacked a large gathering of “Christians” in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk, leaving hundreds of people dead and injured. The veracity of the claim could not be immediately confirmed.
But U.S. intelligence officials have confirmed claims that an Islamic State affiliate based in Afghanistan was behind the Moscow attack, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.
The official said U.S. intelligence agencies had gathered information in recent weeks that an Islamic State affiliate was planning an attack on Moscow. He said U.S. officials privately shared this information with Russian officials earlier this month. The official was briefed on the matter, but he was not authorized to publicly discuss intelligence information and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Aymen Jawad al-Tamimi, an expert on terrorist organizations, noted that IS statements claimed that the attack targeted Christians, calling it a “global ‘confrontation with infidels'”. This appears to reflect the organization’s strategy of attacking wherever it can as part of its “fight for war.” And there are apostates everywhere. ”
In October 2015, an Islamic State bomb shot down a Russian airliner over Sinai, killing all 224 people on board, most of them Russian tourists from Egypt. The group operates primarily in Syria and Iraq, but also Afghanistan and Africa, and claims to have carried out several attacks in Russia’s volatile Caucasus and other regions in the past few years. It recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.
On March 7, Russia’s top security agency announced that it had thwarted an attack by Islamic State cells on a Moscow synagogue in the Kaluga region near the Russian capital, killing several of its members. A few days ago, Russian authorities announced that six suspected IS members were killed in a gunfight in Ingushetia, in Russia’s volatile Caucasus region.
On Friday, statements of anger, shock and support for those affected by the concert call attack continued to pour in from around the world.
Some commentators on Russian social media questioned how authorities, who relentlessly monitor and pressure Kremlin critics, failed to identify the threat and stop the attack.
Russian officials said security had been stepped up at Moscow’s airport, train stations and the capital’s vast subway system. Moscow’s mayor has canceled all large gatherings, and theaters and museums have been closed for the weekend. Other regions of Russia also tightened security.
The Kremlin did not immediately blame anyone for the attack, but some Russian lawmakers were quick to blame Ukraine and called for an intensification of the strike. Hours before the attack, Russian forces launched a sweeping barrage of energy into Ukraine’s power system, crippled the country’s largest hydroelectric power plants and other energy facilities and left more than a million people without power.
Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev has said that if Ukraine’s involvement is proven, all involved, including officials from the countries that committed such outrages, will be “relentlessly pursued and must be killed.” No,” he said.
Mykhailo Podlyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, denied any involvement by Ukraine.
“Ukraine has never resorted to the use of terrorist means. Everything in this war will be decided only on the battlefield,” he posted on X.
White House National Security Council Press Secretary John Kirby said he could not yet go into details, but said, “The images are just terrible. And they’re just hard to look at.”
Friday’s attack comes after Moscow urged Americans to avoid crowded places in light of “imminent” plans by extremists to target large gatherings, including concerts, in the Russian capital. This follows a statement from the US Embassy earlier this month. This warning was echoed by several other Western embassies.
National Security Council spokesman Adrian Watson said Friday that the U.S. government had received information about the planned attack in Moscow and that the State Department had issued an advisory to Americans. Watson said the U.S. government shared the information with Russian authorities pursuant to a long-standing “duty to warn” policy.
Putin, who extended his rule over Russia for another six years in this week’s presidential vote after a sweeping crackdown on opposition, denounced the Western warning as an attempt to intimidate Russians. “These all resemble public threats and are attempts to frighten and destabilize our society,” he said earlier this week.
In the early 2000s, Russia was rocked by a series of deadly terrorist attacks during ongoing fighting against separatists in the Russian region of Chechnya.
In October 2002, Chechen militants took approximately 800 people hostage in a Moscow theater. Two days later, Russian special forces stormed the building, killing 129 hostages and 41 Chechen fighters, most of them from the narcotic gas used by Russian forces to subdue the attackers.
In September 2004, about 30 Chechen militants occupied a school in Beslan, southern Russia, and took hundreds of people hostage. The siege ended in bloodshed two days later, with more than 330 people killed, about half of them children.
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Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.
